


The Scarlet Count

by the_pobbles_aunt



Category: Burning Your Boats- Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter, The Scarlet House- Angela Carter
Genre: F/M, Insanity, Misogyny, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Serious Mummy/ Nanny issues, Violence, although only mentioned, apologies to my english teacher, i didn't set out to disturb you, there is no happy ending or anything in this, warning- marquis de sade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:32:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pobbles_aunt/pseuds/the_pobbles_aunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, another of my English coursework pieces. This is supposed to be written in the style of a film script, hence confusing layout etc. This is and probably will remain the most disturbing thing I've ever written, so a warning in advance: if any of the things I've tagged trigger you, don't read it. As Lemony Snicket says, go and find something happier to find or read or eat. The story this is inspired by, "The Scarlet House" is equally disturbing, and this just expands on that. This attempts to provide an insight into the mind of the Count, a person who, in real life, would be strapped into a straitjacket in a very secure cell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scarlet Count

PAN OVER:

 

EXT. MOOR – DAY

 

The wind whistles through the bleak landscape. A hawk hovers, the only thing in the sky. CLOSE IN as it sights prey. As it plummets to the ground, the air thuds.

 

CUT TO:

 

EXT.OLD HOSPITAL – DAY

 

The building is white concrete, clinical in the extreme.

A GIRL is dragged towards the doorway by MEN IN BLACK. Their motorcycles lean against the walls.

 

GIRL

No! You can’t, I...

(She SCREAMS)

 

Apart from the girl’s incoherent protests, the silence is extreme and unnatural.

 

HOLD on the cut on her cheek.

 

CUT TO:

 

INT. HALL – CONTINUOUS

 

The massive room is illuminated by funereal candlelight, its high, vaulted ceilings lost in shadow. Rich red tapestries hang on every wall, making a bloody chamber.

 

CLOSE IN on individual scenes of Hell.

 

PAN BACK TO:

 

The COUNT sits in a thronelike chair, his face obscured by shadow into a cruel, inhuman mask, waxen and smooth as a dead lily.

His smile is lazy as he hears the distant screams.

 

COUNT

Another one. Madame Schreck! Prepare our guest.

 

HOLD on his smile, now turned hungry, whilst the shot turns grainy.

 

FADE TO BLACK.

 

FLASHBACK:

 

INT. PLAYROOM – MORNING

 

The young Count, now a little boy, sits on the sunlit floor, pl1aying. His face is set in a mulish expression. A middle aged woman, known simply as NANNY, bustles around him, packing. She is obviously leaving; her cases are battered and old. The Count begins to snivel.

 

NANNY

For God’s sake!

 

HOLD on the Count’s face: he is shocked by her language.

                                              

NANNY

You can speak, can’t you?

(demanding)

Well, can’t you?

 

YOUNG COUNT

(quietly, stammering)

Y-Yes

 

NANNY

Well then, you don’t need me.

 

HOLD on her face: she is angry at his sadness, and also resentful of his rank.

 

NANNY

No, you don’t need me. You’ll be a Count one day, looking down at the rest of us as if we’re just so many toys for you to play with. At least when you were still only screaming we were equal.

 

She strides out without looking at him, and the door slams behind her. The Count’s sobbing increases in volume. His face is unseen. Suddenly, he cries out, and throws his toy to the floor.

 

SLOW MOTION as it hits and breaks in two.

 

His face as he throws more is hard, set in his tantrum, and violent. His screams, now of anger, fill the room.

 

DISSOLVE TO:

 

INT. PLAYROOM CUPBOARD – NIGHT

 

A maid has obviously tidied away the evidence of the Count’s rage. It is possible to see broken toys missing limbs, grotesquely piled together as if trying to give each other comfort.

 

HOLD on the split open belly of a doll.

 

FADE TO BLACK.

 

BACK TO:

 

INT. HALL – DAY

 

The Count is still smiling his hard smile.

 

COUNT

(softly whispering)

I’ll teach her, too. There’s no point in language.

 

FADE TO BLACK.

 

EXT. FARMHOUSE - DAY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

The house, a great hulking pile of red brick, exuding calm, is straight out of a Bronte novel. Fog envelops this mansion, the grey light echoing the washed out dowdy dress of the WOMAN who is handed down from the coach.

 

CLOSE UP on her expression; she looks unsure and bewildered, as if she does not know what she is doing. She misses a step, grabs hold of the COACHMAN, one of the Count’s lackeys.

 

ZOOM IN on his face, with its grotesque lack of a mouth, and its pitying eyes, an intimation of what she is in for.

 

IN HIS EYES the camera shows the memory of screaming girls and the Count.

 

CUT TO:

 

INT. HALL – CONTINUOUS

 

The woman stands in front of the Count, passive, her grey dress drab against the womblike walls.

 

INTERCUT the footage of her face with others: one the girl with a cut on her cheek, another with haunting green eyes. PAUSE on eyes.

 

COUNT

(gently)

As of the present moment you inhabit the world no longer since the least impulse of my will can cause you to disappear from it.

 

The control in the Count’s voice is iron-hard; he truly believes this.

 

DISSOLVE TO:

 

FLASHBACK:

 

INT. A LIBRARY - AFTERNOON

 

The library is the same as in any upper-class home, its dark chestnut feel intoxicating. The young Count, now somewhere in his early twenties, takes a book down, blushing but determined, glancing around with the gaze of the guilty although the library is deserted. The Count sits hunched over, engrossed in the book he holds.

 

CLOSE IN to see the words on the stark cover:

 

“Justine.”

MARQUIS DE SADE.

 

He opens it reverently and begins to read, occasionally laughing, but never, ever crying, despite the fate of poor Justine.

 

CLOSE UP of a page, telling what happened to her.

 

INT. BEDROOM – SOME WEEKS LATER – NIGHT

 

The young Count leads his first conquest into the room, tugging her cruelly after him.

 

HOLD on her stricken, terrified face as he makes his demands.

 

YOUNG COUNT

(harshly)

Just do what I tell you, it’s what I got you for. My own Justine. Don’t start talking back and ruining it.

 

She screams, once, as he rapes her, but does not utter a single coherent sound. She is voiceless.

 

FADE TO NEAR BLACK

 

VOICEOVER – COUNT

See, Nanny, I’ve made her scream, too.

 

FADE TO BLACK

 

BACK TO:

 

INT. HALL – DAY

 

The Count leaves his chair in the middle of his artificial room, moves toward one of the many corridors leading off. It is grey and featureless, and as he strides down it the only sound is the swish of his robe.

 

INT. ROOM – CONTINUOUS

 

The cell-like room is lit only by a small brazier, casting shadows on the girl waiting within. It is truly the bloody chamber: the walls seem discoloured, rusted and sweating with blood.                    

 

COUNT

Well, are we going to have a good… lesson today then?

 

He leans closer to her, so that they are a breath apart.

 

COUNT

(whispering)

Will you scream for me?

 

He turns away from her; she is no longer able to hear him.

 

COUNT

(now almost inaudible)

 

My Justine.

 

The girl’s face holds a special kind of resigned terror; she knows what is coming, she’s been through it before.

 

CUT TO

 

INT. CELL – LATER SAME DAY

 

The Count’s face is now mottled with anger.

GIRL

(monotone)

They say I have my mother’s eyes, they say I have my mother’s eyes, they say I have my mother’s eyes...

 

Suddenly he slaps her, the sharp sound echoing through the room.

 

PAN UP to watch the light dance on the ceiling as he beats her, then rapes her. By the end of it she is screaming, making the Count’s laughter uncontrollable.

 

COUNT

(lovingly)

There, see, that wasn’t so hard, was it? The entropic rhetoric of the scream, its universal language, is music to my ears, and quite, quite simple to learn.

 

The Count chuckles quietly as the lights dim.

 

COUNT

(whispering)

I wish you could see this, Nanny. I do it for you. All of them will be voiceless and all of them will be equal, the same, a multiplicity of selves, my playing cards. I do it for you.

 

FADE TO BLACK.


End file.
